How to Buy a Six-Figure Watch Via Video Chat

Shopping from Hublot’s Fifth Avenue flagship has never been easier.

Picture this: You’re jetting off to somewhere exotic. Your private aircraft has been fully fueled, and you’re just settling in your first pre-flight cocktail, then it hits you. You need a new watch — urgently. Now, thanks to the fine folks at Hublot, scoring one of their five or six-figure chronographs has never been easier. The relatively young Swiss watchmaker, founded in 1980, has devised an interactive terminal, dubbed the “Digital Boutique.” The platform is the first of its kind in the reluctantly modernizing world of watchmaking and allows users to interface with their local boutique and its team of sales advisors who live and breathe all things Hublot.

(Hublot)

“Because we move with the times and anticipate our customers’ needs, because we know that the purchase of a product as emotional as a watch is driven by various stimuli, because we consider our customers to be friends and because the acquisition of a Hublot watch is like a journey with different stopovers, we have created a virtual boutique, which enables our customers to remotely contact our sales advisors, who can respond to their needs and to their questions in real time and offer a bespoke service,” Hublot’s CEO, Ricardo Guadalupe, told us. “Our availability and our willingness to be there for our customers is a way of showing them that we care about them as individuals. The relationship of trust that we have developed with them can now start, in a virtual manner, and continue in a real manner, without any constraint on time or place. It is the Hublot experience, the very experience that builds relationships!”

(Hublot)

In practice, the app is much like entering through the door of a brick and mortar watch retailer. It begins on the Hublot website, where visitors are given the option to connect with their suite of 90 boutiques around the world via FaceTime or Skype. Once connected, the sales associate can present desired products or offer suggestions based on the tastes of the customer. Once a piece is selected, at a starting price of $5,500 and reaching up to $1 million, the shopper receives a “virtual form of bespoke information” regarding the watch and has the option to postpone their sale until they have time to visit the boutique. However, for the truly jet set, a shopper can confirm his or her acquisition in real-time with the simple click of a button, making it easier than ever before to shop for near-priceless timepieces from the comfort of the sunbed, corner office, and yes, even your private jet.